Kyle Sampson - Government Service

Government Service

From 1999 to 2001 Sampson served as Counsel to Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) on the Senate Judiciary Committee. After the 2000 election, Sampson "drew on a friendship he had built in law school with Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of the vice president, to land a job making personnel decisions in the early days of the Bush administration." Later he worked under Alberto Gonzales as Associate Counsel to the President. From there, he served as Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, and then, in 2003, became Counselor to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. In 2005, he was promoted to be Chief of Staff and Counselor to Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales (who was sworn in as Attorney General on February 14, 2005). Sampson was "a trusted political advisor" to both Ashcroft and Gonzales.

In 2006, Sampson was a candidate for appointment to be the U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah.

"White House and Justice officials backed Mr. Sampson in his bid to replace Warner, making that clear to the staff of Senator Hatch. But the senator wanted Mr. Bush to nominate Brett Tolman, a one-time Utah federal prosecutor who had spent the previous three years working on antiterrorism issues for the Judiciary Committee staff. . . . Mr. Hatch finally made a personal appeal to Mr. Gonzales to drop his bid to nominate Mr. Sampson. After a four-month delay, President Bush nominated Tolman for the position in June 2006."